Spinal Educator

A recent study adds to the growing list of studies indicating chiropractic care is extremely cost effective. In this most recent study, researchers set out to determine whether there were differences in the cost of low back pain care when a patient was able to choose a course of treatment with either a medical doctor or a doctor of chiropractic, given that his/her insurance provided equal access to both provider types. To obtain this data, researchers analyzed insurance claims from Blue Cross Blue Shield between October 1, 2004 and September 30, 2006 where the insurer had open access to medical doctors and chiropractic doctors through self-referral without any limit to the number of visits or differences in co-pays of these 2 provider types. According to their findings, those individuals who chose chiropractic care for their low back pain treatment had lower overall episode costs as compared to those who initiated care with a medical doctor. According to the study, “Paid costs for episodes of care initiated with a chiropractic doctor were almost 40% less than episodes initiated with a medical doctor. Even after risk adjusting each patient’s costs, we found that episodes of care initiated with a chiropractic doctor were 20% less expensive than episodes initiated with a medical doctor.”